Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) and Point of Sale (POS) terminals promote inclusive financial systems in Africa. Banks are investing more and more in ATM's deployment to be closer to their clients and available at all times. However, the proliferation of new mobile money by telecos (e.g., mobile money) is already disrupting the traditional banking systems. Banks are trying to cope with this by extending their ATM and POS coverage for actual dispensing of money.
Repeated instances of thieves attacking ATMs to break in and steal money are a growing concern among banks. Using instruments or equipment, thieves hit the sides and back of the ATMs and/or POSs and gain access to the vault/storage that usually resides at the back. This is different from other known cases of fraud, e.g.: where cards are cloned and fraudsters pillage other people's accounts; where thieves steal credit cards and associated PIN to commit credit card fraud; and where thieves steal a mobile money PIN to commit fraud.
In a growth market such as Africa, current ATM or POS security come in two forms: deploy trained security officers to physically observe and safeguard the ATM premises; and use sensors (e.g. camera, infrared sensors) to monitor the physical location and environment of the ATMs mainly to ensure the privacy of the customer while performing transaction. Responses to (ATM or POS) security incidents are mostly human driven. This has several challenges, including: incident reporting, processing and coordination involve several ad-hoc processes; there is a partial or complete lack of understanding of the characteristic and context of the incident (including incident verification) while responding to it; and there is no automated context-aware deterrent responses (including linguistic variability) as a stop gap while the response team is underway.